Synopsis of Hewlett-Packard
Change is inevitable in organizations striving for growth and profitability. In 2002, Hewlett-Packard merged with Compaq to accelerate growth and to increase innovation and new efficiencies. Mergers are challenging and dealing with change proves difficult without proper HR functions. With the merger, human resource was responsible for more than 44,000 employees, helping them adjust to the change, calm them down, give direction, and recruiting new talent.
The employees needed fast decisions to help them understand what would be happening now and in the future taking stress off them and decreasing chaos. A merger would also bring about “challenges in building a new global organization, creating a new culture, retaining and motivating key talent, and maintaining our business and customer focus throughout our internal future,” (Bague, 2003). The first strategy the HR department put into action was open communication, this helped the company build trust and allow the workers to cope with uncertainty the merger could bring. HP decided the more informed the employees were the better. Human resource developed a “People Strategy” program to connect HR practices with process across the business to ensure that they move quickly through the initial change period and set high standards aimed at performance in the workplace. The “People Strategy” also energized employees to feel that HP Company was the best place to work with a good atmosphere and employee friendly policies. An on-going program is improving the workplace, ethic, and culture. This is a way to keep loyal employees and recruit new talent with incentives and enjoyable work environment.
The best thing the Human Resource department did to h ...